Wow, I didn’t think that I could fit so many management-oriented terms into one column title, but I did. Not only that, but when you read the rest of the column you will see how this concept can truly enhance your department’s productivity and your personal management efficiency.

Here is the concept. If you prioritize your tasks in a way that allows you to delegate follow-up tasks more quickly, then you can create multiple streams of work that are all being done at the same time.

For example, let’s say that I have three tasks to perform:

1. Write a status report for my boss

2. Review a presentation written by a member of my staff so they can make appropriate updates

3. Reply to a vendor answering a question related to how I want a new piece of software to be written

The order that I personally perform these three tasks can have a dramatic effect on when all three projects are completed. If I do them in the order listed above, then neither my employee nor the vendor can begin their next task because they both need input from me before continuing. It doesn’t mean that they can’t be doing other meaningful work, it just means that they can’t do the things that I need them to do. In effect, if my status report takes four hours to write, then I have delayed projects #2 and #3 by four hours each.

Because I am the “bottleneck” for #2 and #3, the obvious first step in how I should prioritize my day is to perform tasks #2 and #3 first and write my status report last. This allows both my employee and my vendor to begin their work sooner. This simple reprioritization allows me to move all three of my projects forward at the same time. In effect, I’m multi-tasking my projects through the use of others.

Now let’s take the concept one step further, which task should I do first, task #2 or task #3. The answer to this question depends on the following factors:

• The time urgency of each task

• The availability for the person (vendor or employee) to begin working on your task

• The downstream effect related to when they complete their task (i.e. is a third person waiting for them to finish before starting his/her work)

• Any financial or political advantage or disadvantage of finishing one of the tasks sooner

• How long your work on tasks #2 and #3 take to perform

The following mini-scenarios will help illustrate the use of these secondary factors.

First scenario:

If your employee is waiting for your feedback (#2) on a presentation he/she is giving to a major client at 4 p.m. today and the vendor software (#3) is not due for completion until next month, logic would dictate that you should do the three tasks in the order #2, #3, #1.

Second scenario:

Your employee is in meetings all morning and can’t begin using your presentation feedback until after lunch and the vendor/software developer is sitting in the cube outside your office playing computer games (at $75/hour) waiting for your input. Logic here would dictate that you should do the three tasks in the order #3, #2, #1.

Third scenario:

This scenario assumes that you hate doing status reports, you procrastinated, and now it’s due in three hours. In this case, time management theory goes out the window and out of necessity you are forced to write your status report (#1) first and everyone else just needs to wait. The problem with this third scenario is that the person you are hurting most is yourself, because as the manager you are responsible for the timely completion of all three projects.

The moral of these three scenarios, other than to illustrate this time management concept, is to show that the use of this prioritization technique requires an understanding of how the work you do affects others and that up-front planning to reduce the need for expediting tasks that have a minimal effect on others.

